Cindy May Meston , Ph . D 2009

Since entering the field of women’s sexuality 18 years ago, my research has focused primarily on understanding women’s sexual arousal. To the extent that desire and arousal mechanisms are closely related in women, my research also has implications for understanding women’s sexual desire. According to the Laumann et al. (1994) random probability sample of over 1,600 women in the US, approximately 33% report problems with desire and 19% report problems with arousal. Despite these high prevalence rates, to date there are no FDA-approved drug treatments for women’s sexual dysfunction and no empirically validated treatments for desire or arousal dysfunction in women. Below is a summary of some of the studies I have conducted in this area. They may be broadly categorized as studies aimed at understanding the mechanisms underlying women’s physiological sexual arousal, studies aimed at understanding some of myriad factors contributing to women’s psychological sexual arousal (i.e., subjective or cognitive experience of feeling “turned on”), studies aimed at understanding the link between physiological and psychological arousal in women, and studies aimed at developing new treatments for sexually dysfunctional women. In the following studies, physiological sexual arousal is measured using a vaginal photoplethysmograph to detect changes in vaginal pulse amplitude. Psychological arousal is measured using self-report questionnaires and, in recent studies, using a device developed in my lab termed the “arousometer” that allows for the continuous measurement of subjective sexual arousal during stimulus presentation. Laboratory measures of sexual arousal are conducted in response to erotic videos that have been selected and piloted specifically for enhancing sexual responses in women. Measures are reported as change scores between a woman’s response during a non sexual film (e.g., travel film) and her response during a sexual film.